Confluence 2010

1. Prof. Dr. N. PrabhudevVice-ChancellorBANGALORE UNIVERSITYWebsite: www.vcbunprabhudev.inEmail: vcbunprabhudev@gmail.comBlog: http://www.vcbunprabhudev.blogspot.comTwitter: http://twitter.com/VCBU Confluence 2010

2. Hydrogen Seduced by simplicity, physicists find themselves endlessly fascinated by hydrogen, the simplest of atoms. Hydrogen has shocked, it has surprised, it has embarrassed, it has humbled--and again and again it has guided physicists to the edge of new vistas where the promise of basic understanding and momentous insights beckoned. The allure of hydrogen, crucial to life and critical to scientific discovery, is at the center which tells a story that begins with the big bang and continues to unfold today. In this biography of hydrogen,

3. It is a tale of startling discoveries and dazzling practical benefits spanning more than one hundred years--from the first attempt to identify the basic building block of atoms in the mid-nineteenth century to the discovery of the Bose-Einstein condensate only a few years ago. With Rigden as an expert and engaging guide, we see how hydrogen captured the imagination of many great scientists--such as Heisenberg, Pauli, Schrödinger, Dirac, and Rabi--and how their theories and experiments with this simple atom led to such complex technical innovations as magnetic resonance imaging, the maser clock, and global positioning systems.

4. Along the way, we witness the transformation of science from an endeavor of inspired individuals to a monumental enterprise often requiring the cooperation of hundreds of scientists around the world. Still, any biography of hydrogen has to end with a question The interplay of the recombinant DNA, instrumentation, and digital revolutions has profoundly transformed biological research. The confluence of these three innovations has led to important discoveries, such as the mapping of the human genome

5. How biologists design, perform, and analyze experiments is changing swiftly. Biological concepts and models are becoming more quantitative, and biological research has become critically dependent on concepts and methods drawn from other scientific disciplines. The connections between the biological sciences and the physical sciences, mathematics, and computer science are rapidly becoming deeper and more extensive. The ways that scientists communicate, interact, and collaborate are undergoing equally rapid and dramatic transformations, which are driven by the accessibility of vast computing power and facile information exchange over the Internet.

6. In contrast to biological research, undergraduate biology education has changed relatively little during the past two decades. The ways in which most future research biologists are educated are geared to the biology of the past, rather than to the biology of the present or future. Like research in the life sciences, undergraduate education must be transformed to prepare students effectively for the biology that lies ahead. Life sciences majors must acquire a much stronger foundation in the physical sciences (chemistry and physics) and mathematics than they now get.

7. Connections between biology and the other scientific disciplines need to be developed and reinforced so that interdisciplinary thinking and work become essential.Mathematics and scienceSymmetries occur throughout mathematics and science. Representation theory seeks to understand all the possible ways that an abstract collection of symmetries can arise. One fundamental problem involves describing all the irreducible unitary representations of each Lie group, the continuous symmetries of a finite-dimensional geometry. Doing so corresponds to identifying all finite-dimensional symmetries of a quantum-mechanical system.

8. Geology, geochemistry, and geobiologyTo trace our planet’s history and better predict its future, we are developing highly accurate means of monitoring material and chemical fluxes through the Earth system, describing and imaging the Earth’s crust, and measuring time in the geologic record. Numerous opportunities exist within DSc for collaboration among scientists studying tectonics, geochronology, geodynamics, climate change, atmospheric dynamics, physical oceanography, and other related topics.

9. Atmospheres, oceans, and climate Seeking to describe and understand the basic mechanisms that control the evolution of the global environment, our scientists study fluid dynamics, physics, chemistry, geology, hydrology, and computer science. In all areas of research, we emphasize a combination of theoretical, observational, and modeling approaches. Through the Discipline’s research program, there exists great potential for the application of basic science to solving practical societal problems—which makes this research unusually compelling. In fact, our scientists constantly make significant findings about predictability of chaotic systems, the chemistry of the ozone hole, the physics of hurricanes, and the dynamics of ice ages.

10. Biological chemistry is in an exciting era. The confluence of new biochemical, genetic, and engineering methods allows an unprecedented view of the simultaneous changes of mRNA, protein, and metabolite levels inside cells. The ability to solve structures, prepare novel molecules combinatorially, evolve new biological activities, and make measurements on single cells has provided new insights into the relationship of biologically-important molecules and their physiological effects.

11. It is the contingency of human existence that is the central message of Chance and Necessity; the same message that many will know from the writings of Stephen Jay Gould. The core of Chance and Necessity is about the workings of biological systems, with an emphasis on the biochemistry. The ancient covenant is in pieces; man knows at last that he is alone in the universe's unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance. His destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty. The kingdom above or the darkness below; it is for him to choose